Text and photos by Jon Guido Bertelli.

Rain and an embrace of gray clouds welcomed me on my first visit to Vancouver, nevertheless I was so enchanted by the city that I decided to move there a few years later.

“RainCouver” as many residents jokingly call Vancouver, is not only the most expensive city in North America but has also one of the highest living standards in the world. An idyllically situated seaport it is the third largest metropolitan area of Canada, with approximately 2.5 million residents.

Alex taking a rest, wearing his always impeccably polished boots (reminiscent of his army days) on Blood Alley, a descriptive name left from the days when the old butcher shops used to pick up their deliveries there.
© Jon Guido Bertelli
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Vancouver is located on the Burrard Peninsula, between the Burrard inlet to the north and the Fraser River to the south, and is beautifully framed by the Strait of Georgia to the west and the picturesque North Shore Mountains (part of the Pacific Ranges) to the north.

Since that first visit to Vancouver I have been captivated by the magic of the city’s quick and constant changes in lighting: from soft to dramatic knife cutting shadows, bursting with rich contrasts, from vibrant colours to a softer palette of pastel shades and spectacular, monochromatic overcast tones accentuated by strokes of primary colors.

When the curtain of an overcast day lifts, the skyline of Vancouver glitters like a multifaceted prism, reflecting varied and richly coloured images unto the buildings, changing constantly when viewed from different angles with a backdrop of the beautiful North Shore Mountains.

White Tranquility
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Vancouver’s prominent Stanley Park, with its outstanding aquarium is 10% larger than New York City’s Central Park. Its bull’s-eye location gives visitors a 360-degree view of Vancouver when walking, skating or bicycling around the park and all the while enjoying the breathtaking views.

The city’s modern “Glass and Steel” buildings stand hand in hand in absolute harmony besides the older buildings of the city, juxtaposing the puzzle of the past with the new.

The character and soul of Vancouver breathes through everywhere, even in the smallest details of the city.

Dion, “Binning” along one of the many richly ornate Vancouver Downtown Eastside alleys.
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This is a city, which vividly stimulates one’s sense of creativity. People from all over the world have chosen to make it their home, adding to its cosmopolitan character, its culture, and history, bringing a wide variety of international restaurants that put a smile on any food lovers’ face. Vancouver is home to a renowned Art Museum, galleries, an Opera House and a Ballet hosting national and international artists.

Away from the glitzy downtown life, restaurants, clubs and such glamorous stores as Hermés, Louis Vuitton, Cartiér, Gucci, Prada and Burberry, roaring Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches cruising the streets, multi million dollar houses and condominiums blending in with the city’s landscape, sailboats interrupting the straight and peaceful horizon line in the distance. As with so many other large metropolises, Vancouver also has a side in need of help and a facelift: the Downtown Eastside. The poorest area code in Canada, this older section in the historic heart of Vancouver provides a unique dimension to the city’s “glass and steel” character. These aging, often dilapidated buildings are the forgotten facades of a more glorious past.

Reaching for the skies, BC Place Stadium and condominiums, Vancouver.
© Jon Guido Bertelli
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Downtown Eastside, a city within a city, is the home of a disproportionate number of homeless people facing serious issues regarding drug addiction, mental and physical illnesses, violence, crime, abuse, sex workers and the highest HIV infection rate in North America.

More than thirty percent of the residents are indigenous, a ten times higher rate than any other place in Canada. More than sixty women have disappeared, presumably murdered in the neighborhood during the last decade. Even after the arrest of pig farmer William Pickton, now in prison as the mass murderer of Downtown Eastside, the trend continues, with the addition of vanishing men.

Because of Vancouver’s construction boom and the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, several hotels in the area that served as low-income housing have been demolished to make space for high-scale development projects. Housing activists have been demanding that the government build more social welfare housings and shelters for the homeless. Several organizations reaching out to the homeless are active in the area, among them the Anti-Poverty Committee, the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) and so many others.

Anthony, reflecting on his girlfriend’s suicide and being robbed of his life savings.
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I spent a year walking the streets of Downtown Eastside, at first primarily interested in photographing the buildings surviving from an earlier chapter in the history of Vancouver. I used to have an automatic, preconceived and negative opinion of the homeless that I would encounter on my way, always trying to look busy and not to let our eyes meet, until the day when I met Alex, a bright homeless street veteran in his sixties. He approached me with a dignified “Good evening. How are you Sir?” Alex and I immediately clicked and found ourselves engaged in our first of many to come long discussions, not only about the problems of Downtown Eastside, but also about national and international politics, diet, health, art, botany, survival and so many other interesting topics.

Alex, a lively and friendly Dutchman by birth, with a big, fiery reddish beard contrasting with his deep blue eyes, gave me the opportunity to meet other residents of the Downtown Eastside, to befriend, photograph and interview them, giving me a much better insight into their lives.

Reflection in Flight, downtown Vancouvers.
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He used to work as a photo-camera technician for Polaroid, but was not able to keep up with the recent giant steps in the technology of digital photography and was quickly left without a job or new skills. He had part jobs here and there, but not enough to pay for his living expenses. He lost his home and gradually found himself homeless on the Downtown Eastside. Regardless of what happened in his life, he always tries not to let anything take away from his happiness to be alive and his cheerful voice can often be heard on the Downtown Eastside streets “I’m the luckiest son of a gun in the world”!

Dion, so amazing with numbers that he was not welcome to play at some of the Las Vegas’ casinos, was hit by a drunk driver in Vancouver while crossing the street and nearly died of the injuries. He also lost his home and found himself with an injured neck in a halo brace “binning”, picking up empty bottles and beer cans along the streets and alleys of Vancouver for deposit refunds, or anything else that he could find to make ends meet.

Lorna embracing her aunt in front of the “We can not forget” poster of 2008, in remembrance of the many young lives cut short, including their own kids.
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Anthony, a proud Native American of the Cree/Saulteaux First Nations, with long black hair and piercing eyes, left his reservation of Poor Man in Saskatchewan, arriving to Vancouver as a native artist and a musician.

He taught Native American art history at college level and was the Director of one of Vancouver’s Art Galleries. Anthony is a traditional Native American singer, who also plays the flute and the drum. He has performed in Canada, the USA and Mexico. He even added his voice as a traditional singer on one of the multi award winning and Juno award nominated Canadian First Nation singer Sandy Scofield’s CD, Dirty River. Anthony never got over the tragic suicide of his young girlfriend of five years and being robbed later of his life’s savings, two devastating episodes that brought him unfortunately to the Downtown Eastside.

Enteing Downttown Eastside, Hastings Street, Vancouver.
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As he says ”It’s hard, very hard to get back up. To have the incentive or the strength to do anything!

Lorna, of a mixed Native American ancestry, has lived for the most of her life in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside. One of her daughters died of AIDS and another of an overdose in one of the Eastside alleys, reasons that keep her a staunch member in organizations committed to help the homeless, the women at risk and the addicts in her community.

Liza, from Flying Dust, a small Cree reservation in North Saskatchewan, with a population of just over 500 people, moved to Vancouver captivated by the life in the big city, but soon found herself in the Downtown Eastside trying to support her addiction. She is not only beautiful, but a kind and bright young lady who, at the age of 11 took upon herself the responsibility of caring for her siblings after their mother moved to Edmonton. Pregnant for the first time at fourteen, she now has ten children and is already a grandmother at the age of thirty-one.

Liza, a beautiful young lady, not only a mother of ten kids but also a grandmother at the age of thirty-one.
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She warned me not to blindly trust anybody in the area, even telling me once “I don’t cheat, I don’t lie and I don’t steal … that’s the real me. That’s me with a heart, I have a heart! I’ll give you what I have if I see that you need it, but come dark-time in my addiction, I will take everything you have of value”. Lisa was able to leave the Downtown Eastside and was able to kick the habit a couple of times, but sooner or later always found her way back there, as so many others do. With her head in her hands, she told me that the area is not only addictive to drugs, but also to the place itself, life and the people. It just draws you back in; it has a grip on you and doesn’t let go.

Amy, born in Edmonton, Alberta, but brought up in a small town along the Sunshine Coast, British Columbia, moved to Vancouver at eighteen. A “Tom Boy” as a kid, she was always trying to keep up with her three older brothers, drinking, going to bush parties and “doing stupid things” as she says.

Thornton Park Hotel, East Main Street, €“Vancouver
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She left home at fourteen, quit school and decided to go prawn fishing, a well-paying job that introduced her to “coke” at fifteen. By the age of twenty-one, she was hooked on heroin. Trying to leave her addictions behind, she and her husband checked themselves into detoxification centers. Finally, both of them succeeded and were clean of drugs. Not only were they later able to buy a house, a truck, a boat, but they even had a son.

As Amy says, however, “My life is like a revolving door. The drugs took over again, even when I tried my hardest. Drugs linger like a bad smell that you can’t escape”. Looking up, her eyes filled with tears of despair, she told me that she had lost everything, including her precious two-year-old son, taken away and put into the care of a foster home.

Amy, who has constantly been fighting her drug addiction, says that drugs linger like a bad smell that you can’t escape.
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Violet, a Saulteaux Native from Northern Manitoba, left home and her reservation while barely a teenager, shortly after her mother killed her father. She found herself homeless, an addict wandering around and trying to survive the streets of Canada’s main cities, ending up on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside thirteen years ago, sick, having lost one kidney to cancer, with pulmonary edema (fluids in the lungs) attributed to her bad heart. She is never certain whether she will even wake up the next morning.

Regardless of all her life’s misfortunes, Violet had the strength to defeat and remain free of illicit substances until the shattering death of her husband.

Not wishing young girls to end up in her same situation, she tirelessly tries to frighten and convince as many of them as possible to leave the area, telling them that they will sooner or later end up like her, an addict, sick, in a wheelchair: somebody who has lost everything dear to her, including her four children who were taken away from her.

Joe the pastor, preacher at the Carrall Street Church.
© Jon Guido Bertelli
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She is a member of the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society (W.A.H.R.S.), an outreach organization run by aboriginal people, which recognizes that the problems caused by epidemics, alcoholism, rubbing alcohol, Lysol, mouthwash, drugs and many other factors have hit the native population the hardest.

These are only a very few of the many devastating life stories that have found their way to the streets and dark alleys of Downtown Eastside, human dramas that could happen to any of us.

They live month to month on welfare cheques, barely enough to cover the rapidly increasing rents which displace the residents and create more homelessness.

Enteing Downttown Eastside, Hastings Street, Vancouver.
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Some of them are reduced to sleeping in doorways, under plastic sheeting or in cardboard boxes, looking for the comfort of some warmth from hot air-ducts during the winter, or simply finding refuge in a dirty, wet sleeping bag along the streets.

The City of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) Local Area Plan is focused on helping its low-income residents, to improve the community, improve their quality of life, work for social justice and meet the many challenges brought by drug use, alcoholism, crime, housing issues, abuse, illnesses and unemployment.

The DTES works in partnership with the DTES Neighborhood Council, the Building Community Society and the Local Area Planning Committee.

Violet, holding up a photograph of herself with the certificate of being clean of drugs.
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The council is committed to increase affordable housing for all residents and end homelessness by 2015. Vancouver is seeking to build approximately 500 new affordable housing units on city owned sites, as part of its More Homes – More Affordability program.

I have strong hopes that the plans and the optimism for a better future for these often forgotten people in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside will become a reality in 2015, bringing them out from the darkness and back to the light of a more dignified life.

For more information, please visit Jon Guido Bertelli homepage and take a look at these Vancouver Downtown Eastside websites: vandu, dnchome, Building Community Society.

Green & Blue Palette, Olympic Cauldron / Torch, Vancouver
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Text and photographs by Jon Bertelli.

Farewell my life, by Don Galo

I shall speak to the world and its people,
through poetry and poems;
although some cause great joy and happiness;
others cause pain, sorrow and sadness,
others cause displeasure, anger and rage.

It doesn’t matter! Such is time and life,
intricate with sadness and happiness,
anger and rage.

Farewell my life, my loyal partner;
I was a strong man, alluring and brave;
you gave me all you could offer,
thank you my life.

Day by day I’m drifting away from you;
seeking for a new joyful and eternal life,
of peace and happiness.

Farewell comrades of war,
my friends,
to you I bid this final goodbye,
farewell.

Original spanish version at the end of the article¹

Mateo Zapata, son of Emiliano Zapata
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In the State of Morelos, during the Agrarian Revolution of the South, 1910-1920, Emiliano Zapata and his courageous fighters (men and women) battled fearlessly for the rights of their people against injustice, under the common cry of “Tierra y Libertad” (“Land and Freedom”).

I spent the greater part of the two years that I lived in Mexico, during the mid-late 1990s, in search of the last surviving Zapatista veterans from those distant years.

My search was focused in the state of Morelos, where the Revolution of the South started; Pancho Villa was the leader of the Revolution of the North.

While the “kid” of those photographed and interviewed was 99 years of age, most of the other veterans had surpassed the magic age of 100, survivors from the last century. Three of the veterans passed away a few days after I met them.

Zapata's grandson
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They were people who left their belongings behind to follow the heroic figurehead Emiliano Zapata. Finding refuge in the surrounding hills for up to 10 years and fighting guerilla warfare, dedicated to bettering the plight of the common man.

Their hardened character for survival was forged through years of battles, bloodshed and hardships.

Not only did they give up their own lives for their ideals, they even sent their own children to continue the fight.

Always friendly, they would welcome me into their homes, where they told me about their experiences and life during the revolution.
They talked with such passion about a past so close to their hearts, as if it were a part of their present. When I learned more about these intrepid people made frail and minute with the passing of the years, they reached dimensions of giants in my mind.

Most of the veterans whom I met, had been awarded for their bravery during the revolution with the medals of Merito Periodo Revolucionario and a few also with that of Legion de Honor.

Teniente de Caballeria Don Galo Pacheco Valle

Teniente de Caballeria Don Galo Pacheco Valle
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(Cavalry Lieutenant) Teniente de Caballeria Don Galo Pacheco Valle, joined the revolutionary forces of Emiliano Zapata in 1913, with his two older brothers and his trusted Mauser rifle. A survivor of many battles, he told me that the incoming bullets sounded to him like a swarm of bees and with a smile added that one of them bit off the lobe of his left ear. After the revolution he became a homeopathic doctor, a poet and the principal of a school in his small town of Cocoyoc. Even with the many years weighing on him, he was clear minded and still happily working as a homeopathic doctor when I met him. Not only a recipient of the Merito Periodo Revolucionario and Legion de Honor, but had also been honored by the state of California, U.S.A. He passed away in 2002; well into his 100s.

Don Vidal Paredes

Don Vidal Paredes
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Don Vidal Paredes, born in 1898 and passed away at the age of 100. His weapon of choice during the revolution was the favorite of many Zapatistas, the classic Winchester 30-30, because of its quick lever-action firing power. I visited him on several occasions and always found him waiting for me under a portrait of Emiliano Zapata, with his Winchester in hand and a medal proudly pinned to his chest. His usually jovial eyes would become stern and fixed when telling me about the suffering of those far gone days, transporting me back in time with him. My good friend Don Vidal, passed away just a few weeks after his 100th birthday.

Dimas Leyva

Dimas Leyva
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Dimas Leyva, born in 1892, loved life and singing corridos (Mexican popular narrative songs). A witness to the killing of Emiliano Zapata at the Hacienda of Chinameca, Morelos where his body was riddled by the many bullets fired by the soldiers waiting in an ambush.

When I first met Dimas, I found him sitting by the edge of his bed as he emerged in the darkness of the room, with only a faint light peeking through the slightly opened window. As soon as I told him that I wanted to photograph him, he quickly picked up an old print of his general, Emiliano Zapata, wishing to be photographed with him.
Being with his beloved general once again, filled him with such pride that the light in the room, appeared to concentrate on the two of them, like the spotlight on a stage.

Dimas passed away only a couple of days after I photographed him.

Cavalry General Pantaleón

Cavalry General Pantaleón
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When I was first introduced to Cavalry General Pantaleón, I was welcomed by his thunderous voice and personality. I noticed his long bushy eyebrows; each turned the opposite direction of the other, as it having a life on their own. He was known in town for his past as a Zapatista fighter, for his lively personality, his enjoyment to work on his small parcel of land and his afternoon visits to the local “Cantina” for some Tequila.

He invited me to take a seat in his small living room, where he told me about his ideals and the battles in which he participated in. As he told me, while the many photographs and busts of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, pieces of his revolutionary memorabilia adorning the walls, appeared to be looking down at us with consent.

Suddenly he stood up, lifted his shirt to show me a large scar running across his belly and with his characteristic laugh told me that nobody believed him, that at his age, he would have survived the recent operation of removing a bullet that had been lodged in his body since the revolution. With a firm tone he said: “Mira, … nadie me creyó, pero aqui estoy mas vivo que nunca!” – “Si señor!” (“Look, … nobody would believe me, but here I am more alive than ever!” – “Yes Sir!)

José Manuel Gabino Corona

José Manuel Gabino Corona
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José Manuel Gabino Corona, a quiet and noble man with the rank of a captain in Zapata’s infantry. Although happy to have survived the revolution, he was sad about his many young companions who had died at a young age during those dreadful years of the war.

Marcelino Anrobio Montes

Marcelino Anrobio Montes
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Marcelino Anrobio Montes, born in 1896. Marcelino fought and rode with Emiliano Zapata from the time he was just a young teenager in 1911, until the year when E. Zapata was killed in 1919. He had a severe and piercing stare that would only relax when his wife, a niece of E. Zapata was close to him, often with her arm on his shoulders or wrapped around him. Barely visible, their dog would follow them everywhere at a distance, guarding and keeping a watchful eye on them, aware of their fragility.

Benjamin Sanchez Medina

Benjamin Sanchez Medina
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Benjamin Sanchez Medina and his wife invited me into their home, located in the small town of Chinameca, only a few blocks from where Emiliano Zapata, betrayed by Colonel Jesús Guajardo on April 10th – 1910, was shot and fell lifeless from his majestic horse “As de oro” (“Golden Ace”). Benjamin said with a sparkle in his one good eye (he had lost sight in one), “El caballo de Zapata no era cualquier caballo!” (“Zapata’s horse was not like any other horse!”) Benjamin and his wife still looked like the perfect young couple in love.

Their many happy grandchildren surrounded us while their friends peeked through the window, wondering about all the attention surrounding the old and proud warrior.

Señora Angela Zamora

Señora Angela Zamora
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How can I ever forget the sweet and determined girl who followed Emiliano Zapata and his troops? She joined the Zapatistas at a young age, at first carrying provisions, helping with cooking, rolling cigars for Emiliano Zapata, loading the rifles and later actively participating in the fighting. She was one of the many women who fought courageously in bringing a positive outcome to the armed struggle that they were part of.

At first she did not want to have her photograph taken, believing the photograph would rob her of her soul. Fortunately I had brought a Polaroid camera with me, I told her that I would take her photograph and give her soul back. As soon as I handed her the instant photograph and after taking a good look at it her face lit up with a big smile, she promptly positioned herself toward the warm sunlight and consented to let me photograph her.

Medals
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More than ten years have passed since I last saw my “Old friends”, they have left us to join their companions in arms and their “El Jefe” (“The Boss”, as he was also known) Emliano Zapata. I miss their quick wits and their positive outlook on life enjoying every minute of it, their strength and their noble ideals, which still echo through the hills of Morelos and across Mexico

I’m grateful to Zapata’s family members and the families of the Zapatistas who spent countless days with me looking for the veterans, without them this project would not have been possible.

Winchester 30-30
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A special thank you to all my friends in the state of Morelos, they made my two years in beautiful Mexico a much more personal and special chapter in my life.

Please visit Jon Bertelli website for more informations and photos.

© Jon Bertelli
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1. Adios vida mia

   Hablaré al mundo y a la gente,
   por medio de poesías y poemas;
   aunque algunas causan gran gozo y alegría;
   otras causan pena, dolor y tristeza,
   otras causan molestias, furores y rabias.

   ¡No importa! Así es el tiempo y la vida,
   compleja de tristezas y alegrías,
   furores y rabias.

   Adiós vida mía, mi fiel compañera;
   fui hombre fuerte, magnético y valiente;
   tú me diste de todo lo que tienes,
   gracias vida mía.

   Me voy alejando [de] ti, día tras día;
   voy buscando una nueva vida feliz y eterna,
   de paz y alegría.

   Adiós compañeros de Guerra,
   amigos y amigas,
   de vos me despido para siempre,
   adiós.